The unmasking of Jim Tressel as something other than a legitimate voter in the USA Today Top 25 coaches poll is just another case of dog bites man. Ho and hum, folks. Ho and hum.

Everybody with even a nodding acquaintance with the realities of college football understands that the coaches are the absolute worst people to entrust with any kind of polling responsibility. College football writers, by the way, are a close second.

And yet the two most influential rankings -- the USA Today joke and the Associated Press farce -- are determined by the coaches and the writers, respectively.

If you could, I would ask you to read my lips: For the most part, the coaches do not watch games that don't involve their own teams and/or their upcoming opponents. Meanwhile, the writers are almost universally held hostage by their beats, which means they are watching "their" teams and/or are writing their stories while everybody else is playing.

Do you think for a minute that Tressel, the Ohio State head coach who was once an assistant at SU, has a legitimate clue -- or has the time to care -- about whether Oklahoma is No. 10 or No. 15, about whether Louisville is No. 12 or No. 13, about whether TCU is No. 22 or No. 23? Do you think that the writers, whose job it is to be interesting and informative while at the same time beating deadline, have the energy to dope out the merits of Georgia vs. Oregon or Tennessee vs. Texas Tech?

Please. The polls may or may not be necessary in the world of college football. That is not the discussion here. What is, is this: Which body of people should be given the duty -- no, the authority -- of not only determining the Top 25 clubs in the land, but the order in which to list them? Which group is best equipped of body, mind, soul, schedule, ethics and motivation to do justice to the polling process?

There are coaches who allow their SIDs to slog through this stuff each and every week . . . and then those same coaches are allowed, by rule, to hide behind their (i.e., their SIDs') secret ballots. There are writers who make their judgements late Saturday night after having watched those highlight snippets on SportsCenter . . . and then feel comfortable (sort of) sneaking Boise State onto the fringes of the Top 25.

It's a sham, folks. It really is. And Jim Tressel's declaring earlier this week that Texas was the top team on his ballot, but voting instead for Ohio State as No. 1, underscores the folly -- wait . . . the possible dishonesty -- of the entire production.

But then, the combination of flawed voting and untruths can be part of the American way. You do remember Bush-vs.-Gore, don't you?